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This latest work centers on individuals chasing after new beginnings, struggling to escape drugs or abusive marriages, only to witness hope devolve into aggression. The author frequently uses the phrase "fresh start", rendering it deliberately jaded through constant reiteration. Phrases such as "He was ready for a new beginning" and "They opted for a clean break" are scattered across the narrative. Meanwhile, the author herself seems to be making her personal new beginning, because this appears a new kind of book – documentarian, genuinely novelistic. However it reveals itself to be laden with the familiar conflicts and aesthetics as earlier books.

From Unplanned Author to Cult Classic

The writer started out as an artist who entered the literary world unintentionally with her 1997 cult classic I Love Dick, made up of epistles to an unresponsive love interest, converting intimate women's literature from humiliation into assassination. She persisted as a writer, but the next trio of compelling and abrasive novels lacked the shock and immediacy that the correspondence format brought to the tone of I Love Dick. This was not aided by was her identity as a renegade artist who had turned into a major property owner, so there was significant attention on housing investments. It follows that she now wants to try out new kinds of material, turning outward to external narratives, at a period in which she states that current political era makes confessional writing obsolete.

Multiple Generations, Shared Inescapable History

The Four Spent the Day Together is organized into a trio of segments, covering three generations – each trapped by their pasts. The book includes the tale of Emma and Jasper, based on the author's parents, relocating from the New York borough to rural Connecticut. Additionally the narrative of the author, in the guise of a figure named Catt Greene, grappling with the late recognition of I Love Dick, the emergence of Trump, and her substance-dependent spouse her husband Paul. And there is the story of the murder of one directionless individual by another in a locality long abandoned by progressive politics only a short distance from Catt's cottage in rural Minnesota.

From my perspective as a reader drawn to polished prose of the kind Kraus herself often avoids, I was seduced by the literary tone of the opening part.

As a reader who appreciates precise prose of the kind that the author often disregards, I was seduced by the storytelling approach of the initial part. It possesses a fresh level of observation that makes room for small details, like the container that the protagonist as a child dislodges from ice at the beginning of the narrative, aided by her beloved father. "I discovered a frozen plaything!" she says; "a great plaything", he answers, "the ambiguous meanings of language circulating in their speech like piece candy". The author narrates Emma's story with curiosity and intimacy. "Emma felt like she'd stepped into a dream – not entirely her own."

Disappointment and Disjunction

I was fated to feel let down when I expected this fresh tone could persist to the end. Kraus notes here that she is annoyed by the enjoyment readers like me have taken from I Love Dick; she's devoted to fragmentation, to the messy artistic approach she has in common with her idol Kathy Acker, and the blankness and repetitiveness of her past books returns in the central part. Catt Greene is working on refurbishing multiple decrepit residences in the city's most challenging districts while traveling between Minnesota and LA, unable to aid Paul manage his alcohol use. She experiences powerlessness as her spouse moves between underfunded jobs as an substance abuse counselor in a society fueled by the anger and fear that powers an electoral success. A significant portion discusses about the protagonist facing cancellation on Twitter, her listed profession modified from "writer" to "real estate holder" on a reference site. She still gives the impression to be overly concerned about this. In a moment she says that she's researching the homicide so that before leaving Minnesota, "she could potentially understand something about an America that her online critics would not understand, would not even see".

The Homicide Account

Thus we arrive to the actual killing – and the referenced day spent by the victim with the killer and his associates. The author possesses great source material, and knows hour by hour what transpired when the victim Brandon came to visit Brittney after meeting her on an app where she marketed explicit images. He anticipated intimacy but appears congenially to have passed the day alongside her friends, wandering about having his vehicle repaired and paying for snacks and drugs, before being killed by gunfire by Brittney's boyfriend Micah – a young, mentally ill man who has repeatedly received inpatient care for aggressive outbursts.

Obsession and Unfinished Business

Catt gets obsessed by the story, and I was fascinated by the way that the author's conflicting impulses towards ethical reporting and reckless transgression tussle in this section. But I'd have liked her to go further into her individual preoccupations here. The most interesting character is the character Brittney, who becomes vivid partially because of the protagonist's connection to her – yet another intelligent, harassed young woman going off the rails in a difficult, overlooked locality. Kraus notes that Catt speaks to Brittney in prison, but she omits the dramatization of these talks. The complete segment feels oddly unfinished, to the degree that the author's storytelling ends almost mid-par